John Boyne pays homage to Dickens in latest book

It’s been five years since Irish novelist John Boyne’s life was changed forever when the film adaptation of his novel, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, propelled him into the big league.

His subsequent novels have done well, although not quite as well as the one that made him famous, but the 42-year-old author refuses to concede that Striped Pyjamas has been a difficult act to follow.

“That book opened so many doors for me. My subsequent novels are published in more than 20 languages based on the fact that I built an audience with that book. If it had been my first novel, I’d have had a different attitude. But it was my fifth, so I understood the publishing industry.”

Although he doesn’t think it’s his best book – he thinks his 2011 novel The Absolutist is – Boyne says it came at a great point in his life. “It’s given me so much,” he says. His eighth novel, This House is Haunted, is, as its title suggests, spooky. And it’s an homage to Dickens, Boyne admits. “I love Dickens, 19th-century literature and ghost stories, and to combine them was something I wanted to do.” 

Spooky goings-on

The story, set in 1867, sees a 21-year-old governess take up her post at an eerie Victorian mansion, Gaudlin Hall, in the wilds of Norfolk in England to look after two children. But when she arrives there are no parents, no adults and no-one to represent her mysterious employer.

“A lot of the novels I’ve written would be very difficult to adapt because they would be quite expensive by their nature. [Previous settings for his books include the Russian Revolution and the French trenches of the First World War.] But this one would be one of the easier ones to adapt – small cast, one single setting, a big house with a ghost-story feel to it.

“My agents have it with producers, but until such time as contracts are drawn up on these things, it’s probably best not to get too excited.”

His experience of the movie-making world has so far been a positive one. He was heavily involved with the Striped Pyjamas film, reading every draft of the script, but never tried to take over and was pleased with the finished film. “Once you sign that contract, you have to accept that you’re getting paid for it, the movie is going to bring your work to many more people, but you have to allow the film-makers to do their job.”

While Boyne has also written three books for younger readers, This House is Haunted, an adult novel, could be a crossover, although he doesn’t care for the term. “I write the kind of books that can be read by different age groups. I don’t use simpler language in the young people’s books, I write traditional big stories, usually with a historical context, but certainly one that teenagers could come to as well.”

Growing up in Dublin, the son of an insurance broker and a housewife, Boyne studied English literature at Trinity College, Dublin, then creative writing at the University of East Anglia.

For three years, he worked in bookshop Waterstones, writing in the evening after work, before clinching a publishing deal for his first novel, The Thief of Time, published in 2000. It enjoyed some success but not enough for him to give up his day job, so another three years at Waterstones followed.

Boyne wrote three more books before The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas changed everything in 2006 and the film, made two years later, raised his profile further. Now able to write full-time, Boyne bought a house in Dublin, close to where he grew up, but isn’t extravagant and confesses that his biggest indulgence is buying hardback books.

Reflecting hope